Last week an outside link to Big Hollywood led me to a leftist blog I’d never heard of that goes by the name of Sadly, No! For lack of a better term, here’s a portion of their, uhm, mission statement:

Sadly, No! is a liberal/progressive humor site based in Germany, originally as a project of founder Seb, but since 2004 operating as a group blog, currently with American contributors. It has daily traffic between 7,000 and 15,000 visits. …

The site’s main running joke is in finding embarrassing slips or untrue statements by conservatives and linking to a refutation, saying, “Sadly, No!”

Well, even Germans need a hobby, though it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that “sadlyno” is the German translation for “get a life.”

Last week Sadly, No! decided to target John J. Miller’s Big Hollywood article about his novel “The First Assassin.”  Violating their own mission statement, the attack wasn’t based on any “embarrassing” or “untrue” statements made by Miller. They just found it oh-so hilarious that the novel is self-published. As a snark attack, it’s Gawker-lite –- and Gawker isn’t all that impressive — but here’s what’s especially confusing… (more…)

You’ve heard it said before: “The book is better than the movie.” But the movies helped me write my new book, The First Assassin.

The First Assassin is a historical thriller set primarily in Washington, D.C., at the start of the Civil War. Bestselling author Vince Flynn blurbs it on the front cover: “An excellent book–it’s like The Day of the Jackal set in 1861 Washington.”

The Day of the Jackal is a twofer: Both the book (by Frederick Forsyth) and the movie (the 1973 version) are excellent. But the book is still better. It’s super excellent.

Anyway, I started working on The First Assassin in 1996–more than 13 years ago. Yeah, that’s a long time. It was the project I kept setting aside when something more pressing came along, such as the birth of a child or a writing deadline that came with a guaranteed paycheck. (more…)

So the latest GI Joe flick is creating controversy, because the character is no longer portrayed as a typical American soldier. Instead he’s part of some elite murky force of international fighters – a Benetton ad with rocket launchers. On MSNBC, Donny Deutsch tried to take John J. Miller to task over his objections to the change – pointing out that the shift from an iconic American character to a mushy international delight is a “business” decision. For the movie to make money internationally, Donny thinks the character has to become part of global task force of community organizers. To this, I say, “Fiddle faddle,” which is short for “Silly stupid fiddle faddle.”

I wrote about this two years ago, just when Hasbro and Paramount execs decided to give GI Joe a makeover. Back then they felt the world would be too pissed at us for getting rid of Saddam Hussein to go see a movie about an American hero. As it turns out, they were wrong – the backlash over Saddam’s death had less impact than Norman Fell’s.

But for a moment, let’s attempt to use Donny’s logic on other flicks. “Sex and the City,” my favorite film – made a pile of money around the world, and it was about five American chicks exercising their rights to both unfettered capitalism and sex. According to Deutsch, it would have been better to make them all multi-racial, transgendered dolphins – and stationed them in Brussels in a cool undersea condo shaped like Earth. Granted, that does sound awesome – but it probably would have been less successful than the original concept (which made me cry). (more…)

Proving he fits right in at MSNBC, Donny Deutsch managed to make up three facts in just a few minutes:

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With National Review’s John J. Miller counting down the 25 best conservative movies of the last 25 years, it got me to thinking about conservative “moments” on film. This is not a preview of any upcoming films on the NRO list. You’ll have to keep an eye on the Corner for those. These are just clips [some with adult language] that stand out for the reasons stated below:

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1. “I’m not your best friend; I’m your only friend.”Other People’s Money (1991): One of the reasons Leftist films have been bombing at the box office (even with Leftists) is due to a one-sidedness that insults the intelligence. In just a couple years, between narratives and documentaries, there have been over a dozen anti-war films that have all flopped, and one of the reasons is that at no time was a single character allowed to stand up and point to the elephant in the room: (more…)